The Beauty of Coincidence | manxman | (Historical Fiction)

XLIX - Always a Fool

"I've been married to you more than half my life now," Norman said, hands clasped behind his back, and he was pacing about the center of he and his wife's bedroom. "At some point, I would think your hatred for my son would dwindle, and yet you prove yourself time and time again to be spiteful, Ida."

"Spiteful?" Ida furrowed her brow. As requested, she'd been assisted back into bed, the same bed she'd shared with this man before her for twenty-seven years. "What recent spite do you speak of? I only—."

Norman turned his eyes toward her, a wave of heat seeming to spill from his very gaze. "Wept due to a fever you do not have in order to keep me from my son's side. I obliged your complaints and remained here to tend to you as you cried. Have I not shown my loyalties to this marriage, Ida? Why must you continue to show your displeasure at his mere existence? I've remained in this city, I've given you a son, a daughter, my wealth. How can you have all these things and still be as uncaring to me as you have?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ida looked away, pulling the covers up over her a bit more. "I've loved you and have been just as committed to this marriage as you. I appreciate this home and love my children."

"Would you have ever been so tolerant if I missed a day so important to yourself, Leon or Macey?"

"Are you truly so upset over missing Victor's birthday?" Ida seemed to scoff. "He is nearly thirty years of age. I think your doting and constant obsession over him have lasted long enough."

"He is my son..."

"And I am your wife," Ida countered.

She shoved the cover from herself then and neared the man who'd been chosen to wed her when they were only infants. In her mind, there was a pledge in that fact alone, an honor both of them had been given to have seemingly been destined for one another. When she looked upon Norman Ramsey, she saw a man who belonged to her. Everything about him belonged to her. From his name, to his hands, lips, arms and all, but it was the incessant reminder that another once attempted to claim this man that burned an annoyance she could never fully escape. No matter if well over twenty years had gone by since the one Norman preferred had vanished, still Ida felt the sting of her husband's distance.

Trying as she might to veil her anger, Ida looked to the floor and wrapped her arms around Norman's body, holding fast as she clung to the back of his shirt. "Does it please you so much to leave me? I — I only grow fearful when you leave our home, Norman, because I love you so badly. I grow afraid when you leave my side."

"I know you." Norman said, arms down at his sides as if they refused to mirror her embrace. "There are things I am sure I do not know about you, but in the end, I know this person I married. You may think me loveless at times. You may envision my apparent distance as neglect, but ever since the day you painted your own image of yourself to me, I have stayed as loyal as a man can be to his wife and family."

Norman looked down and met the green eyes of this woman staring up at him. Every note of what she was thinking was so clear to him. She was angry. She was obsessed. She truly was in love, but this was not a love he'd been familiar with so long ago. When he looked at her, he could see similarities held in Leon and Macey's reflections, and there was a part of him that loved those bits, yet the full picture of Ida was her and her alone.

And his heart could not latch onto her as it'd latched onto Victor, onto Macey and Leon, or how his heart had latched especially onto the woman named Louise. But that last one wasn't Ida's fault, nor could Norman help such a thing regardless.

"Loyalty is not love," Ida said, her embrace becoming slack but she didn't release Norman from her arms. "Fine. You can think I lied about my sickness to keep you from traveling for Victor's birthday. You can think of me as the most vial witch to have ever dwelt in this country, but I won't have my name overshadowed by a past you can't find a means to escape. Just as you said, husband, it has been over twenty years. Once you've moved on, then so shall I. Until then, I will continue to deny him."